


beautiful silence

by cityscaped (touchofgold)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M, childhood AU!, deaf! au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-07-10 23:17:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7012204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/touchofgold/pseuds/cityscaped
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>two seven year olds meet in a small sand pit in the park and they silently dispute over the one remaining bucket in the sandpit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	beautiful silence

**Author's Note:**

> bear with my 2014/15 writing
> 
> ironicllyphan.tumblr.com

The innocence of children is always captivated and captured within a safe haven of the park. Swing sets where they challenge each other to swing the highest and jump off, rolling around in the grass giggling. Swing and Slide sets where they could pretend they were pirates, princes or a damsel in distress.

It was supposed to be a happy place.

Not for Phil.

Sitting all by himself on the grass just looking at the children made him self aware about his limitations. He was deaf, and mute. Of all the disabilities, as a seven year old, he always wondered why him? His only way of communication to anyone was through a sticky pad which never ran out in his pocket or sign language only to those who took care of him.

He stared at the laughing children, who seemed to be living a carefree and disability free life. All he heard was emptiness in the atmosphere. Instead, he tried to focus on the beauty of the park instead, the way the grass glistened due to the sun, the way that the small reflective surfaces made a small rainbow or the way the flowers were blooming.

Phil hid from the other kids of course, those big boys who tend to bully the younger kids. Growing up, he was always bullied by the same people who never really knew about his disability. He bet that if they knew about it, he would be bullied constantly. Avoiding eye contact with the other kids and just admiring the beauty of nature, a figure loomed over him.

Looking up, he saw a boy, who seemed about his age, standing above him. He had dark, chocolate hazel brown hair and a fringe that swept over his forehead towards the left. His eyes matched his hair, chocolate hazel brown, crinkling slightly to match his small smile. His skin was pale and yet he wore black, making his pale skin stand out further.

“Hi.” the kid said, staring at Phil. Phil looked at him, examining him and reading his lips. Nobody had ever taken an interest to him before, this was something new. Just as he opened his mouth to reply him, he quickly closed it, almost forgetting that he was mute and that he couldn’t hear him. He took out his sticky pad and scribbled on it with a pen and passed it to the kid. “You don’t talk much or maybe you just don’t like to talk.” the kid said, raising an eyebrow.

Instead of walking away like other kids do, he sat down on the grass opposite Phil with a hand outstretched. “I’m Dan. Dan Howell. And you are?”

Phil just stared at the kid, trying to read his lips, something his mother had told him to learn. Taking out his small sticky pad, he wrote, ‘ _Write what you want to say here_.’

The kid stared at Phil weirdly thinking of all the possible reasons why this kid wouldn’t want to speak to him. But he didn’t walk away, instead, he took the sticky pad and the pen and scribbled down his name. “I’m Dan, Dan Howell.” reading out what he wrote on the sticky note. Phil looked at Dan and wrote down his name as well.

Dan was chatty, he wrote and read out what he written on the sticky pad aloud to himself in his Winnie the Pooh sounding voice; of course, only Dan could hear his own voice. “Phil Lester, what a nice name.” Dan said, reading Phil’s name aloud and writing down his thoughts about Phil’s name.

Dan looked at Phil, the thoughts still swirling around his mind about Phil. Why wouldn’t this boy talk to him? How odd. In the midst of staring, Dan was captivated by Phil’s eyes.

Like how a butterfly was attracted to the nectar of a flower, Dan was attracted to beauty. He admired the beauty of Phil’s eyes, the blue, green mixture with flecks of yellow that could be seen under light. At a young age, Dan was introduced to a wide set of vocabulary due to his addiction to Winnie the Pooh. Dan noticed the way Phil was staring back at him and quickly snapped out of his beauty admiration trance.

_Sorry, your eyes, they’re so different. It’s like a mixture of blue and green at the same time, with bits of yellow. It’s interesting and reminds me a lot of the ocean._

Phil looked at the sticky note and a large smile stretched across his face. Nobody had noticed something like that about him before, nor even gave him a compliment. People usually pointed out his flaws and left him like that. Phil looked at Dan carefully thinking why would a boy like him spend time with a person like me?

_I like your eyes too, they remind me a bit like chocolate._

Dan laughed, a laugh Phil could never hear how genuine and friendly it sounded. “People always say that.” Dan said, writing his thoughts back down onto the sticky note. Phil just stared at his lips, reading them carefully and understanding fragments of it. Phil noticed the way when Dan laughed, his lips turned up at the corners and his eyes crinkled slightly. Something he had not witnessed in a while.

Ever since Phil’s mother discovered that her child was mute and deaf at the same time, she was devastated. Phil’s father left, with the reason being he didn’t want to take care of a mute and deaf child. Phil’s mother slipped into depression fairly easily but had not resorted to drinking. Time passed and she struggled to teach her son with the limitations; but hope landed in the Lester household as Phil’s mother had discovered Phil’s love for reading and left him to self teach himself. But that little ray of hope didn’t last long as Phil’s mother grew self aware about her son’s condition and went into full depression. She rarely ate and stayed cooped up in her room crying most of the time.

She could never look at her son the same way.

‘ _Let’s go to the sand pit.’_ Dan scribbled onto the sticky pad. Without giving Phil a moment to respond, Dan had already grabbed Phil’s hand and pulled him up and broke into a run. The two boys sprinted across the park to the sand pit where it was empty save for a small bucket and spade. Phil gave himself a moment to catch his breath, as he never ran this fast in his life before. The feeling of running was exhilarating and something new to Phil; as he only ever took small slow walks admiring the scenery. Running was an incoherent blur of colour, something Phil didn’t like.

Sitting carefully on the sand, Dan watched as Phil slowly stepped into the sand pit. Phil looked like a lost boy that has just discovered something new and that brought a small smile to Dan’s face. Phil placed himself carefully on the sand, taking in the feeling of the soft sand against him. Grabbing a handful of sand, Phil let the fine grains of sand slip through his fingers, bringing him amusement. Watching it also brought Dan amusement as Phil repeated his actions over and over again with the sand.

As they both reached for the one remaining bucket, a small wordless fight started between the both of them. As they were both seven year olds with child like thinking, they both wanted the bucket as it gave one more control over the building of anything. But Phil was more of an people pleaser character, despite unable to do it. He willingly gave Dan the bucket and they both immersed themselves into building a fine castle in which they both had wild imaginations and fantasies to give character to their castle.

To other people’s eyes, it may just look like a sloppy seven year old first attempt at building a sandcastle. But to Dan and Phil, it was a masterpiece. Both had wild imaginations and it gave the castle a more whimsical and magical touch to it. Scribbling their ideas down, they both came up with a story before sundown.

_Once upon a time, there lived a princess inside the this very castle. Her evil stepmother, casted a spell over the castle so that nobody could see it. A dragon was placed to guard the castle from any wanderers and was her only companion. One day, a prince stumbled through the magical barrier and was curious at how the castle was kept hidden. He broke into the castle, by sneaking through the loose bricks and found the princess. The evil stepmother discovered the prince and was about to curse him when the dragon saved him and burned the evil stepmother. And they lived happily ever after. The end._

“Well I like the dragons touch.” Dan chuckled thinking about their made up story. Both Dan and Phil had wild imaginations that could run from dragons to slaying princes. But alas, time flew and the sun began to set. The two boys sat in the sand pit, watching the sunset; hues of purple, orange, yellow and blues intertwining with one another to create the most beautiful sunset these two boys have ever witnessed.

 _‘I have to go now._ ’ Phil wrote onto the sticky pad. Dan read it and nodded.

“I’ll see you soon?” he asked. Phil plainly gestured to the sticky note and Dan quickly scribbled it down. Phil nodded, smiling at the chocolate hair boy whom he now knows as Dan. Helping each other up from the sandpit, they both just stared awkwardly at each other before Phil waved at Dan and slowly walked back to his home which wasn’t that far from the park without looking back.

Dan stared at the silhouette of the new, quiet boy he just met. “Phil Lester.” he said, before turning his back and walking in the opposite direction of Phil.

~

Days passed and the two boys seemed to have clicked together with an silent bond. Phil was always at the park earlier than Dan, waiting at the grassy spot where he first met Dan with a fresh sticky pad as overtime the two met up, the sticky pad always ended up finishing. With Dan in Phil’s life, the blue eyed boy started to see life with a more colourful view and his smile grew bigger. Phil slowly began to read lips easily and it wasn’t shocking that Phil was able to grasp Dan’s words now and then.

The two often sat in silence, just enjoying the presence of each other. Dan once brought his Gameboy to the park and was surprised at how Phil was clueless about it. Unlike most families, Phil’s just couldn’t afford something as simple as a Gameboy. The two bonded over their mutual liking for Pokemon and they had more adventures in the park together.

Dan began to enjoy the outdoors. Before he met Phil, he was awkward, quiet and refused to speak to anyone but his family. His parents forced him to go to the park and Dan reluctantly went, unknown that he would meet Phil. And ever since he met Phil, he had never regretted the moment where his parents forced him to go outside.

But things changed. Dan went to the park, earlier for once and waited at the grassy spot for Phil. He had his Gameboy in his hand, eager to show Phil his new progress into the game and a new game he had. He waited for a while, thinking that Phil could’ve just overslept from his nap or something, as Phil once told him he took naps in the afternoon.

Seconds turned to minutes.

Minutes into hours.

Hours to sundown.

The sun began to set and Dan stared at the setting sun, the colours strangely the same as the first day he met Phil. ‘Maybe Phil was tired or sick today.’ Dan thought, his naive seven year old mind. Dan got up and walked slowly back to his home.

And the hours turned into days.

And the days? The days turned into a year.

Dan stopped waiting for his bright blued eye friend. It was New Years Eve and he silently sat on the grass, hugging his knees together, hoping that Phil would magically arrive and sit right next to him. A small tear escaped from Dan’s eyes, knowing that he was abandoned.

Pulling a couple of bright coloured sticky notes from his pockets, he began rereading their hearty conversations they had together before the day Phil left without a word or sound. The sun finally set and Dan got up, knowing it was late and his parents would freak if her stayed out longer. He zipped up his coat tightly and ran back home, unknowingly leaving behind his sticky note conversations.

Phil watched from behind the trees as Dan sat alone on their grassy spot and reading their sticky note conversations. He watched with tears burning his eyes, not knowing how to break to Dan the news ever since he left. Phil had kept all his feelings bottled up in his naive seven year old self. Why, his mother committed suicide recently. Phil had no idea how to tell that to Dan or even face him.

Because the ones he loved always left him. And he didn’t want that to happen with Dan.

As Dan ran away, the blue eyed boy crouched on the grass and picked up the sticky notes and tucked them into his pocket. He had to return to the Social Services soon. Taking one final glance at the direction Dan ran into, he turned his back and walked back to Social Services.

Dan returned home, with his face blotchy and eyes red. As the young seven year old, he poured out his thoughts about Phil to his parents. His parents listened with open ears and they clucked their tongues and patted Dan’s head quietly. Dan’s parents, knew something about Phil that Dan didn’t know about and Phil never told Dan.

“Dan,” his mother cooed. “We have something to tell you about Phil.”

Those words made Dan’s ears stick up and he looked at them. “Tell me.” he said.

Dan’s parents sighed. “You never knew this, but everybody knew. Why Dan, Phil has a disability. He’s deaf, and mute.”

 _Deaf and mute._ Those three words rang in Dan’s mind. At the seven year old, those three words would’ve been difficult to comprehend. But Dan was often told that he thought and acted more mature for his own age. All the memories came rushing back to Dan, why Phil never spoke, why Phil always carried around a sticky pad and pen. He never wanted anyone to know about his disability.

_ten years later._

At eighteen, Dan was already fluent in sign language. Ever since he knew about Phil’s disability, he learnt sign language, in hopes that he would one day meet Phil again. But ever since Phil left, Dan changed. He slowly retreated back into his shell and was quiet. He became awkward again and unable to socialise properly.

Phil had also changed. He went to a special home schooling centre where they taught him properly and he was a fast learner. He never made any friends when he left Dan, he was always worried about them leaving him. He too, retreated back into his own shell.

Dan was sketching at the park one day, watching how kids laughed and enjoyed themselves on the swing sets which were too big for Dan already. At six feet, he missed the times where he was small and tiny and fitted inside the sand pit. Now he would just break the sand pit if he sat in it.

Sketching was a hobby Dan picked up, he first started with flowers, then people. But he stopped drawing faces, because every time he drew a face, it would remind him of Phil. Phil’s stupidly blue coloured eyes and his little smile at the park. But today, Dan wasn’t alone at the park as Phil was there too, watching the children scream and laugh, unable to hear them still. He still couldn’t speak, no matter how the doctors tried. He was permanently deaf and mute.

He held the sticky notes, the ones that Dan left behind on New Years Eve. A gust of wind blew, causing them to slip out of Phil’s hands and it blew them away. Some call if fate, some call it destiny, but the sticky notes made their way to Dan and he looked at them, racking his brain to figure out where these came from. Emerging from his hiding place, Phil made his way next to Dan and plopped himself next to Dan.

Tapping Dan on his back lightly, Dan spun around quickly and a huge smiled stretched across his face when he saw Phil. Phil uttered three words to Dan in sign language. And Dan copied them back, fully understanding what three words Phil had said to him.

_I love you._


End file.
